Interesting. When I last checked in on the Maryland exchange, their effectuated QHP enrollment was down about 14% since the end of open enrollment (from 162,177 QHP selections to 139,379 effectuated enrllees as of the end of April).
However, they just posted the following market share breakdown, which shows that they currently have 148,403 Marylanders enrolled in exchange policies, a net drop of just 8.5%. Apparently they've added more people during the off season via SEPs than they've lost due to attrition since April.
Health insurers seek rate increases in Maryland as United Healthcare quits market
...United Healthcare, the nation's largest insurer but a bit player in Maryland, was not included on a list released Friday by state regulators of companies seeking rate increases for 2017.
Insurance Commissioner Al Redmer confirmed that the company was leaving the exchange created under the Affordable Care Act, as it has in most states across the country. It will continue to offer plans in the small-business market.
A couple of days ago I noted that after two years of nothing but doom & gloom (and coming just a week after UnitedHealthcare pulled the plug on the individual market in over two dozen states) there seems to finally be some positive developments, with companies like Centene and Anthem reporting better-than-expected results. They may not be making a profit yet, but at least they aren't losing money hand over fist the way they did the first couple of years.
I also made a brief mention of the Maryland Co-Op, Evergreen Health, which reported their first quarterly profit since launching 2 1/2 years ago.
Consumer operated and oriented health plans in Maryland, New Mexico and Massachusetts will report profits in the first quarter, in a sign that some of the remaining Affordable Care Act-created nonprofits could be finding their footing on the state exchanges.
I was just informed by the MD Health Benefit Exchange that as of April, their effectuated individual enrollments are down to 139,379 people. That's a drop of just over 14%. This is completely in line with my numbers for 8 other states.
A few months ago I noted that while UnitedHealthcare and some other carriers may be losing money hand over fist on the ACA exchanges, at least some of them are making a profit, breaking even or at least cutting their losses down to a reasonable level.
As a simple reminder, competitive markets should see some companies make money and some companies that offer more expensive and less attractive products lose money. I would be extremely worried if everyone was making money after three years, just like I would be extremely worried that everyone was losing money after three years of increasingly better data.
In a classic case of missing the forest for the trees, I posted two very wonky, detailed entries over the past couple of days about Minnesota and Connecticut's latest enrollment numbers...but completely missed one crucially important data point.
As of 2/1, total QHPs are 165,123 (49,377 new + 115,746 renewal-active and passive).
However, this number didn't include a few "overtime" days of enrollees, which padded the number a bit more...nor did it include the subtraction of unpaid QHP enrollees (ie, cancellations/purging of enrollees who didn't pay their January premiums in time, were transferred to Medicaid due to income changes and so forth).
I'm surprised by this for several reasons. The snowstorm was nearly a week ago, and there's still 3 days left for people to enroll as it is; are there still a lot of areas of Maryland coping with power outages/other disruptions which are making it unreasonable to expect people to get in under the wire?
Second, because CMS just stated pretty unequivocally that HealthCare.Gov will not be offering any official deadline extension (although, like the MD exchange, they did say that they'll have an "in line by midnight" exception). I assumed that if HC.gov was taking a "hard line stance" that the state exchanges would as well.
Maryland already exceeded my (and their) OE3 target of 150K QHPs a few weeks ago, so anything more is just gravy, but every bit helps counter the shortages I'm seeing in other states. Last week they reported 155,701 QHP selections as of 1/20/16.
Just now, they confirmed the latest numbers ahead of Sunday's final deadline:
As of 1/26, 156,695 QHP / 304,667 Medicaid / 25,784 Dental.
I've never really tracked dental plans, and I'll be writing about the latest Medicaid numbers later, but that's 156,695 QHPs as of 1/26, or 994 more in the past 6 days, or 166 per day.
This is actually a slowdown from MD's average from 12/28 - 1/20, when they reported a net gain of 5,408 over 23 days (235 per day). On the other hand, given how much Maryland has been kicking butt this year, perhaps they're just running out of people to, you know, enroll.
Anyway, MD is on track to add at least another 1,000, potentially up to 3,000 more for a final number close to 160K.
